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Special message to Baltimore-area readers: Psst! Don’t forget to come see me do comedy at Magooby’s, tonight!

Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, 4/3/13

You know, not to get too meta about my own shtick, but sometimes I get into so much of a groove exaggerating a strip’s tropes for humorous/queasy-making purposes that I forget that those tropes don’t always even need exaggeration! For instance: did you know that much of the intended humor value in Barney Google and SnuffY Smith derives from the fact that all the characters are desperately poor? It’s true! Like, I don’t think I ever fully grasped it, but instead of having “rooms” in their shack, the Smiths just have a tattered curtain running across the middle of the interior, providing rudimentary privacy when Snuffy and Loweezy want to get away from each other — when the latter’s resentment towards the former for never, ever helping around the house reaches a seething crescendo, say.

Mark Trail, 4/3/13

So Rusty is holding some kind of taxidermied monkey’s paw on the end of a long stick, right? There’s no way that withered hand at the bottom of panel two is (a) connected to his shoulder by an ordinary arm or (b) is a human hand or (c) is living tissue with blood pumping through it. What a strange, upsetting little boy. Mark at least seems to understand that Rusty is best experienced in small doses, though his attempt to express the idea using normal human syntax is somewhat unsuccessful. “Consider that a deal, friend! And remember, we can’t visit you if we don’t go home first! So we’re going home! Trust me, once you stop looking at Rusty, that weird inexplicable tension you have in your jaw will go away!”

Edge City, 4/3/13

Fine, Uncle Lumpy, fine, you’ve got me hooked on Edge City’s obsessive neurotic stylings! Anyway, today obsessive neurotic Abby Ardin’s hopes for a little emotional intimacy with her husband have been dashed, even taking into account the extremely low bar she’s set for herself.

Mary Worth, 4/3/13

After a busy day of not giving Tom’s lovelorn messages to her daughter, Elinor relaxes by reading the Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe and rattling her beloved bottles of prescription meds. This raises the question: How will Tom die? Tied to a table and eviscerated by a huge swinging blade? Or from a mysterious pill overdose?

Dennis the Menace, 4/3/13

Dennis and Joey are dragging a wagon of garbage around the neighborhood! Yes, Margaret, you are right to be horrified.

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Hi and Lois, 4/2/13

My feeling is that, as a rule, people bring up the idea of going to a marriage counselor not (obviously) when things are going great and not in the middle of a screaming fight, but in the post-storm lull, the aftermath of a long, draining argument that has left both parties exhausted. That’s what I’m assuming is going on here, with Irma’s expression in the first panel all worn out and heavy lidded. I appreciate the narrative conceit that we’re being dropped down into the midst of some long, dark evening in the Thurston marriage, and that we’ve landed right as things turn: when Irma thinks that now is the time to finally make a last ditch effort to save their marriage, only to discover that Thirsty is ready to go another round. Look at her face in the second panel! This is going to be uglier than you can imagine.

Mark Trail, 4/2/13

Wow, I’m not sure how I missed the fact that these bass fishing contests that Rod Bassy has been rigging had big cash prizes? Like, I honestly thought it was just for fishing glory. I guess the motivation behind Rod’s elaborate cheating schemes is much more obvious now. It does make the whole plot a seem a lot tawdrier to me, though, and Bluegill’s comical, dignity-free glee at winning by default sure isn’t helping.

Dick Tracy, 4/2/13

Dick Tracy is teaming up with Jumble Jeff and David Hoyt to teach kids important information they need to know about the economic and distribution models for modern-day printed syndicated newspaper content. Could nefarious supercriminals have altered your favorite comic or puzzle, for evil purposes? It’s best to handle the Sudoku with tongs, just to be sure!

Marvin, 4/2/13

Nobody in Marvin’s family cares very much whether he lives or dies.

Spider-Man, 4/2/13

Finally, Spider-Man finds a level of superheroics that he can handle. (Just kidding, he’ll try drinking it and then say “Gross, is this skim?” and spit it out all over his costume.)

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Mark Trail, 4/1/13

“On behalf of tournament officials, we’d like to apologize to you, Mark … apologize that your beloved ward was kidnapped and almost killed by one of our contestants! Ha ha, just kidding, we don’t feel responsible for that at all, and it doesn’t seem like you were that worried about it anyway, so why should we care? We do feel bad about the cheating, though, as that will make us look bad to your readers, who don’t give a rat’s ass about children but are passionate about the integrity of fishing tournaments.”

“Don’t worry, you do a good job … most of the contestants are honest fishermen — guys like Rod are the exception! When it comes to cheating at fishing, I mean. Rod’s pretty typical when it comes to kidnapping little kids. I don’t know what it is, but fisherman just can’t get enough of luring children into their vans. ‘Landfish,’ they call them. And Rusty wonders why I don’t take him fishing more often! Ha ha!”

Crankshaft, 4/1/13

As sad as “Crankshaft replies angrily to the punning TV newscaster” makes me, I think that “Crankshaft sullenly gets in on the punning TV newscaster’s pun-theme” is much, much worse.

Shoe, 4/1/13

“Get it, because burnt food gets all black and crispy? No, but seriously, Roz sells burned and expired food to the poor and desperately hungry, in defiance of local health department regulations and consumer safety laws.”

Family Circus, 4/1/13

Boy, Billy sure is angry at a pagan nature spirit! Nyaaah, where’s your omnipotent patriarchal creator deity now, Billy?